When touching smooth and/or delicate surfaces, for executing a movement, for example, by bare human hands or by the hands of a robot, there is the risk of an inadvertent relative movement between the surface and the hand touching it. This relative movement, for example, in the case of an article grasped by the hand can lead to its slipping out of the hand and the article being damaged in a subsequent and uncontrolled movement. Especially for delicate surfaces, reliable handling cannot be achieved by simple measures such as, for example, increasing the force acting on the article touched by the hand, since increased force can result in damage of a delicate surface.
WO 2008/113816 A2 discloses a support device (glove) for improving the grasping impression for hands with an active surface that interacts with parts of the respective hand for executing a movement and has individual cup-shaped projections. The free ends of the cup-shaped projections are each provided with a kind of microcrater whose crater opening discharges into the open. If, under the action of force or pressure, the cup-shaped projections come into contact with a corresponding article, the respective crater opening coming into contact is folded down. The cup-like projection then forms a kind of widening plate edge that, for improved adhesion of the projection to the indicated article, leads to an increase of friction. In addition, the known solution is used to assist an operator owing to an increased damping action caused by the microcrater structure in the projections.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2008/0201823 A1 also discloses a comparable solution in which, for the purpose of roughening the active surface of the support device (glove), pyramid-like projections are on the support surface to increase the friction between these projections and an article to be handled.
Another representative of this glove solution is disclosed in German Utility Model 93 08 338, in which triangular or cup-shaped projections are integrally connected to the surface material of a work glove. The work glove material is of a watertight material, especially of an elastic material such as rubber or the like. The work glove outfitted in this way is especially well suited to the household for cleaning and peeling potatoes, carrots, or the like by rubbing.
Another type of support device is formed by the gloves according to U.S. Pat. No. 6,081,928 A and U.S. Patent Publication No. 2006/0282936 A1. These known glove solutions on their top have suction cup-shaped projections that, when touching an article, apply a suction action to the article and thus, effect adhesion by a vacuum.
The disadvantage in these known solutions is that to some extent only inadequate adhesion occurs between the support device and the article to be touched and that the projections in part project far from the support device. These characteristics adversely affect the ease of operation. Furthermore, the known solutions are to some extent complex to produce, and therefore expensive.